Trap For A Solitary Man
by SpaceAnJL
Summary: Pasadena is in the grip of a heatwave. And in the grip of fear. Someone is strangling beautiful young blondes...
1. Chapter 1

Sheldon Cooper liked routine, and order. A dead body in his office was not in the schedule. He'd remember that sort of thing, he was sure of it.

He couldn't recall her name, but the face was familiar. Under the swelling and the marks of asphyxia, anyway. She was one of his graduate students. Always flitting around with casseroles and cupcakes. There was what looked to have been a rather tasty chocolate cake spread over his floor and desk right now. A dark smear of frosting disfigured a whiteboard, and a distant part of his mind wondered how he would rescue the equation beneath.

Dimly, he was aware of the gasps and screams behind him, the running feet, the gabble of voices.

The last thought through his mind before it all went black was "Not another one..."

00000000

The senior detective was a big black man, with the grim demeanour of a cop who'd seen the worst the job had to offer. His name was Turner. His partner was thus known to most of the precinct as 'Hooch', but his real name was Landry. Spiky brown hair and blue eyes, he was looking into the distance with an intense stare and a grim set to his jaw. Turner eyed him sideways.

"What you thinking about?"

"Pizza." Landry said, promptly. "Unless you want to stop at the drive-by. Hey, you know what they call a quarter-pounder with cheese in Paris?"

Turner glared at him.

"If you start that shit up with me again, I'm gonna shoot you in the ass."

Landry grinned, unintimidated, then sobered.

"So, this makes a third." He leafed through the file in his hands. "Same M.O. as before. Ligature strangulation, thin cable, a generic brand, no other signs of assault."

Headshots of three young women. Gretchen Peters. Bethany Wells. Ilsa Nyman. Gretchen had worn glasses, Bethany had had brown eyes, but they were all varying degrees of blonde, they were all students at Caltech, and they were all dead.

"Gretchen Peters was discovered by a couple of mothers with their kids by the edge of Grant Park. Bethany Wells was clear over the other side of the campus, in the parking lot by the gym. Ilsa Nyman... was found in this guy's office. A couple of cleaners found him standing over the body."

"Do we like him for this?"

"I guess we talk to him, find out if there is any connection besides the workplace."

00000000

Half an hour later, Landry walked out of the room and leant against the wall. Turner followed him, and the two men looked at each other.

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"I...just – wow. Is he real?"

"Shock makes some people a little...off." Turner didn't sound entirely convinced.

"Last time someone presented me with JLA credentials, he was running round the Rosebowl in his underpants and a bedsheet, claiming to be Batman. He was five."

"Okay, yeah. The literal card-carrying geek squad thing was whacked. But you picked up the important thing?"

"He knew the victim."

"Hell yes he knew the victim. She'd been bringing him homebaked goods for a few weeks, and he didn't recall her name?" Consulted his notebook. "'I can't be expected to remember every labradoodle that follows me around.' I think we're gonna need to take a closer look at Dr Sheldon Lee Cooper."


	2. Chapter 2

The parallels between the victims were beginning to make an ugly pattern. They were not obviously connected at first glance, being different years, but closer inspection revealed more than 'blonde' and 'student'.

"They were all in the PMA Division." Turner looked grim, even for him. "Bethany Wells was a graduate, the others were undergraduates. But they all took courses with Cooper. And Caltech only get him to lecture small groups by his own request."

"There's no way he didn't know them, then."

Landry was boggling over the dossier. The guy was a disaster. Restraining orders, arrests for trespass, a history of spats and feuds with colleagues, including a failed expedition which seemed to have some kind of query about manufactured data, notes from HR about inappropriate conduct. A whole litany of complaints from his side, about parking, about the canteen, about office space, about lab access...

"Late father was a possibly violent alcoholic, mother's deeply religious. He's socially awkward, intellectually arrogant and has poor interpersonal skills." Landry frowned. "Do you think the manchild thing is an act? I mean, string of qualifications, he functioned well enough to hold down a job, put together a deposit on an apartment. The guy we met, I wouldn't trust to cross the street by himself."

"Could be a breakdown. Wouldn't be the first of the folks here to tip over the line."

"Like that guy they keep picking up for public indecency – Rothberg?"

"Rothman. Yeah, I hope not. I hate the crazy ones. You never know what sets 'em off."

"I think the heat brings them out." Landry loosened his tie. He'd already discarded his jacket and rolled his sleeves. Turner was still looking irritatingly unflappable, even as his bald head gleamed.

"He's been teetering on the edge of academic burnout for a while. I guess they thought he was brilliant enough that his behaviour was considered an acceptable trade-off, but the last few years, he's just been rehashing things, or making embarrassing foul-ups in public. He's gone from being considered an eccentric genius to the crazy manchild with the germ fetish."

Landry thought of those long, strong hands, fastidiously cleaning themselves with a wet-wipe. Cooper was thin and gawky, but he was also tall, and broader across the chest and shoulders than a first glance suggested. The victims had all been healthy young women, but none of them strong enough to fight off a grown man.

"If this girl intruded into his private office, his personal space, made some kind of friendly overture, he might well have over-reacted... He's a clean freak, doesn't like to touch people, a cord would be a logical weapon."

"I suppose we better talk to the room-mate, Hofstadter. He's here on campus, we can call him in. Ask him to get his friend some clean clothes."

Cooper had cooperated easily enough, and had rattled on about procedure with the fine disregard of someone who had all their knowledge from in-depth study of television crime drama. So either he was a smug, arrogant bastard who thought he was clever enough to get away with it, or he was an equally arrogant innocent, who didn't seem to realise the potential trouble he was in. Either way, he was sitting in an office without his pants until forensics finished with them. It was a convenient way to keep him in one place, short of charging him. Unethical, perhaps, but practical.

The short man was nervous, sweaty-palmed, blinking behind his glasses. His reaction to the situation was prompt and a little startling.

"Well, his last room-mate warned me when I moved in, but I just laughed it off...I mean, he's clearly not normal, but I never thought he was this bad...he's never been violent before, really, despite the restraining orders, it's just if his routines aren't adhered to, he can get a little crazy, mostly just shouting...I never thought he'd actually hurt someone..."

Most of the time, friends and neighbours were shocked, disbelieving. Sometimes, you got the ones who had been suspicious, afraid, relieved that someone else saw it. But the eagerness with which Hofstadter started trashing his room-mate and best friend was disconcerting. Turner, stone-faced, took rapid notes.

"We haven't arrested Dr Cooper." Landry broke in, a little disgusted, after a couple of minutes in which they found out more about labelled kitchenware and the domestic life of the pair than they actually ever wanted to know.

"I...oh..." Hofstadter blinked at him, wrung his hands. "I just thought..."

"We're simply asking Dr Cooper some questions due to his finding the body. Unfortunately, the CSIs need his clothing, so we were going to ask you if you could fetch him some acceptable alternatives."

"Oh. Oh, of course. I...well, my lunch break is in a couple of hours, I can find something then, certainly..." A chewed little smile and a rapid retreat.

"What the hell was that?"

"They've roomed together for over ten years. Hofstadter either has the patience of a saint, or there's some deep co-dependent shit going on there."

"I didn't take to him." Landry admitted. "He struck me as the type of guy who'd say whatever he thought would make him look good. Unreliable witness, for or against."

"He looks like a regular stand-up guy next to Cooper."

"I think _everyone_ looks like a regular stand-up guy next to Cooper. Which – may be the point."

00000000

One dead girl was a tragedy. Two started an uneasiness. Three victims, and panic flared. Various boyfriends and room-mates had gradually been eliminated from suspicion, but still, the atmosphere on campus was fraught. The female students had taken to travelling in packs, more so than usual, and even the marginally popular could find acquaintances to walk with.

Unlike the others, Howard split his working time between the main Caltech campus and the JPL site. So he came in on the events a little late, saw the official vehicles in the parking lot.

"There's been another one?" He asked, as he sat at the table in the cafeteria. The room was more male-dominated than usual, and subdued.

"Worse than that." Raj said. "This one was _in_ the building."

"Crap." Pushed away his tray, appetite failing. "Another student?"

"Another blonde student." His friend's eyes were a bit puffy, Howard noticed. "It was Ilsa Nyman."

"Ah, man." Howard's face fell even more. "She was sweet. Gave Bernie the recipe for those cinnamon twist things..."

Leonard shuffled into the room, paused as attention focussed on him for a brief moment before passing him by as of no interest, then carried on towards their table.

"Guess you've heard, then?"

"Yeah." Howard shifted in his seat. "I'm wondering whether to ask Bernie to consider some personal leave. Someone's offing blonde science chicks, I don't like my wife around that."

"Bernadette is - probably safe." Leonard said, with a certain heavy significance. "She's not in _our_ department."

"What are you saying, Leonard?" Raj asked, bluntly.

"The one thing all those girls really have in common is Sheldon Cooper."

The deadly little observation came out overloud in the tense room, stilled the conversation for a moment. Then there was a ripple outwards, a sense of moving thought.

"Dude." Raj's eyes bugged.

"It's true." Leonard defended himself clumsily, jaw jutting with nerves. "They were all in his classes. In and out of his office all the time. We had one turn up at the apartment with a traybake."

"Doesn't mean you have to point a finger at him."

"He was found standing over the body. Everybody's going to know that soon."

Howard looked around him, at the way heads hastily turned away.

"Well, they certainly know _now_." he said.

00000000

"Ms Jensen, you've worked with Dr Cooper for a while?"

"Yes." She was ill at ease, plucking at her skirt, but she met Landry's gaze squarely, there was no guilt. "He's kind of strange and inappropriate, but I always thought he was harmless. I really wanted to work with him, his early papers..." She bit her lip. "I guess you should never meet your heroes."

"Is that why you wanted to transfer supervisors? We have a request on file..."

"I thought I was going to be working with Dr Cooper, not running about collecting his dry-cleaning and buying birthday presents for his weirdo girlfriend."

"There's a girlfriend?" Landry blurted, jolted out of his professional role.

"Yeah. Kind of. It's... you'd have to see it to believe it."

"Was it widely known you were thinking of transferring supervisors?"

"I kept it very quiet, I was still only thinking about it. Dr Cooper would have freaked out completely if he'd known."

"When you say he'd freak out, do you mean you felt unsafe around him?"

"No." That came back fast and automatic, and she looked surprised at herself. "No. Oh, he'd just go on and on and on about it, but really, I think if he threw a really big tantrum now, he might, well, get fired again. But someone I know must have mentioned it to Bethany, because she came round to ask me about it. She wanted my role as teaching assistant if I moved."

"She wanted to work with him?"

"He's got a strange little fanclub amongst some of the students. I used to be one of them, myself. Reading his papers, you could only think, 'my god, what a mind'...I turned down a position at Fermilab to work with him, but sometimes I wish I hadn't." She looked at them, very serious. "He's not the same man I applied to work with. Mentally, I mean. I'm not scared of him, exactly, but – I think I'm scared for him."

When the door closed behind her, Landry leant back in his chair.

"Fanclub? Girlfriend? He's a skinny weirdo who dresses like a pre-schooler."

"And holds a double doctorate, works here." Turner shrugged. "Being weird isn't a crime. Hell, this place, it's practically a job description."

"I want to see what kind of woman he snagged, with all those grad students chasing him..."

The knock was perfunctory, she walked into the office like she owned it.

"I am Dr Amy Farrah Fowler. Dr Sheldon Cooper is my boyfriend." It was a flat statement, with a possessive edge.

Landry blinked. Under the lab coat, she was dressed like a woman twice her age, the long face pinched and glum, not at all flattered by the lank hair and heavy glasses. He was unaccountably glad that she didn't offer her hand.

"And what can we do for you, Dr Fowler?"

She stared at him blankly. Even with the magnification of the lenses, her eyes were small and beady.

"Dr Cooper was with me." She lifted a pointed chin, mouth pursed. "All evening."

Landry was starting to wish he'd rolled his sleeves down. He was used to women eyeing his biceps, but there was a predatory air here he really didn't care for.

"And he didn't leave your sight all evening?"

"I played my harp for him until he fell into a refreshing slumber. So you can release him back into my care."

"We still have a few questions for Dr Cooper."

"Very well. When you have finished with him, please let me know, and I will escort him home."

Turned with no more pleasantries, and marched out again. She left behind a faint lingering odour, something sharp and faintly chemical.

The two detectives looked at each other.

"Do you believe her?"

"I think she'd say anything to protect Dr Cooper." Diplomatically. Less diplomatically. "They say love is blind, but seriously..."

"Yeah, I don't think so, either. Whatever they were doing, it wasn't horizontal."

"And we already know she's lying." Turner cleared his throat, read from the transcript. "'I waited until Amy Farrah Fowler had left, had my evening beverage of warm milk. And then I returned to the campus.' When asked why, the response was, 'I was going to lie in wait for the cleaning staff. They've been lax in their work recently, disarranging things in my office, smoking in there, I could smell it even if they left the window ajar. I wanted to catch them in the act, confront them.'"

Landry wanted to bang his head on the table. Every word out of this guy's mouth dug him into a deeper hole.

"But. If he was waiting for the cleaning staff, then he knew there would be other people around."

"Maybe part of him wanted to get caught. Wanted to be stopped."

They took it in turns to play Devil's advocate, generally, arguing for and against a suspect. Both of them had seen apparently mild and normal people, some still covered in the blood of a loved one, trying to explain the why of it.

"Security footage shows Ilsa Nyman entering the corridor here. And then, ten minutes later, there's Dr Cooper. But then, Lourdes Trevino and Maria Martinez enter the other end of the corridor less than a minute later. They didn't hear any sounds of a confrontation or a struggle."

"It only takes ten to fifteen seconds for unconsciousness."

"Yeah, but he'd have to have jumped straight in through the door with the cord ready, and found her with her back to him straight off. And what about the cake?"

"The what?"

"Big pottery plate like that, bust all over the floor? It would have made a racket. Not only that, but the frosting was over Ilsa Nyman's shoes, she'd slipped around in it. The soles of Dr Cooper's trainers were clean."

"I'd like to say he was unlucky, but I dunno, there's something off about the guy."

"We can't hold him. There's no evidence to connect him to the actual killings. He knew the women, but so did dozens of other people at Caltech, who also use the same parking lot and building. Which reminds me, how did the interviews with the friends go?"

"Howard Wolowitz. A history of minor nuisance, the kind of pest who hits persistently on women joggers. Seems to have settled down in the last few years, though, he's married to Rostenkowski's daughter."

"Big Mike? Yeah, that would do it."

"We looked at him quietly after the first victim. Between his wife, his mother, and his best friend, he's got an alibi for the murders. Unless you think the entire Glendale Over-60's waterpolo team are mistaken."

"Glendale... no, I don't want to know."

"No, you really don't. Pelzer drew the short straw on that interview. Came back with _all_ his cheeks pinched. Howie's there to help his Mom in and out of the water. They keep the 'little brown cutie' around to help with the towels."

"Jesus." Shuffled the papers. "Moving swiftly on...Oh, and the friend is Cooper's former office mate. Well, well. These guys have anything to say about Cooper?"

"Koothrappali was a bit reticent, but it turns out his job, and thus his visa, rather depends on Cooper, so he's going to be acting out of self-interest, or he's been intimidated. Wolowitz was a bit more open, painted a picture of a complete nut, though rather less eagerly than his so-called best friend. I get the impression they hang out with Cooper because they are friends with his room-mate, Hofstadter, not because they actually like the guy too well. Only one of his colleagues with a half-decent thing to say about him was a Leslie Winkle. Apparently, he might be 'an East Texan blowhard', but she's convinced he's harmless. Of course, she also said she was surprised it wasn't him that got murdered."

"Does this guy actually have any friends? And none of this virtual Facebook shit."

"It's kinda sad." Landry leant back in his chair. "I mean, you think it's some kind of balance of nature thing? All the extra smarts, you get a side-order of batshit as standard?"

"I think they all live inside their own heads too damn much, and then every so often, they run slap up into the real world, and they don't like it." Turner shook his head.

"Maybe we need to go out into the real world, get another viewpoint. We could go talk to the neighbours."

00000000

Even for California, it was hot. The heat came up off the sidewalks in a visible shimmer, and tempers frayed, traffic one long snarl of frustration. 2311 Los Robles' air conditioning received the same level of maintenance as the elevator, which was to say, none, and thus the building sweltered. By the fourth floor, the air was a warm soup.

Penny was sacked out on her couch, trying to find the energy to do something. The knock at her door surprised her, and she tensed, waiting for the next two. They didn't come.

There were two guys standing in the hallway. One was vaguely menacing, despite the sports coat and slacks. The other perked her interest slightly, being younger, and having his jacket slung over one shoulder, revealing an impressive gunshow in his short sleeves. Then an actual gunshow, she saw a holster as he flipped out a badge.

"We'd like to talk to you about a Dr Sheldon Cooper?"

"Okay, what's the big whackadoodle done now?" The weary exasperation startled them, the faint note of fondness even more so.

When they told her the circumstances, her shock wasn't feigned, but there was blank disbelief, a touch of anger, and more than a little worry.

Turner thought she might have been pretty, once, before life knocked the dreams out of her. A little frown was setting in between weary green eyes, and a downward set to the mouth that added a hardness to her face.

He knew the type. She didn't look like she was using, yet, but she had the look of someone who hit the sauce a little too often. Another small-town wannabe with a party-girl lifestyle. A few more years, and Vice would probably be busting her for porn. Either that, or she'd settle for whatever guy would pay her bills, sink into a suburban existence, drop a few kids and smother the bitterness with booze and prescription meds. She might get lucky and catch a break, but he wasn't hopeful.

The apartment had the same look, the bright furnishings trying a little too hard, with an air of neglect and discouragement settling over them. Dishes in the sink, piles of magazines, discarded clothes, trodden down shoes that had just been stepped out of and left. The stale air held ghosts, sex and drink and dust.

The girl fluttered for a moment, swept up an armful of things and thrust them in through a door. Landry got a glimpse of a bedroom, a tumble of unmade covers.

For the first time, they found someone who didn't speak about Cooper with a twist of contempt in their words.

"Sheldon's my friend." Penny said, simply. "He's probably scared, which will make him act like a jerk. But he wouldn't hurt anybody. He's more likely to try to blow your head up with his mind." She gave a wistful little smile, and for a moment, Landry could see the hopeful, sweet girl she must have been once. "He hung a bunch of my panties out the window one time. Ooh, I was so mad at him..."

"He steals laundry?"

"No! Oh, god, no, it was a joke, we had this whole prank thing going on...there was a thing with the onion rings, and then the wifi, and he has this laundry schedule..."

Seven years of assorted strangeness tumbled out. Her face became animated as she talked, hands waving for emphasis. The discontent lifted.

"You still have these little contests, then?"

The animation died, like flowers in frost.

"We don't hang out like that so much, now. He's got a girlfriend, now, and she's kind of my friend, and I'm with Leonard, and it would just be awkward." Her eyes slid away, and the hollow look came back. "I suppose we all have to grow up sometime."

"Hmm." Turner, who had gleefully stalked through the departmental Christmas party in a black duster and an eyepatch, nodded sagely. "Well, thank you for your co-operation."

00000000

They walked down the stairs in silence, until they hit the lobby.

"Well, this case just got nastier."

"You noticed it, too?"

"Same physical type."

"And she's dating Hofstadter. He must have hidden depths."

"Some women like the hopeless puppydog type."

"If you want a dog, then get a damn dog, I say." Turner shook his head. "You've seen Cooper's girlfriend. And then there's a pretty blonde across the hall, flits in and out of their place all the time. Only she's with his room-mate. There's got to be a helluva lot of frustration built up there."

"'Yet each man kills the thing he loves...'" Landry murmured. "So, what, we've got sexual frustration, jealousy and some kind of displaced homicidal urge. Can't - or won't - kill the actual object of desire, so the next best thing is grad students?"

"It's a theory."

00000000

...Stupid, stupid. He'd been too impatient. Now attention had been drawn in the wrong direction, far too quickly. This was not according to the plan. There would be punishment...


	3. Chapter 3

The strains of Radiohead's 'Fake Plastic Trees' drifted through the apartment. Penny was listlessly sorting through things. If she moved in with Leonard, if Leonard moved in with her...things would have to change. There would be no use for the pretty sparkly tops, the flirty little skirts, clubwear grown dusty and crumpled through disuse. Bubblegum pop music and soft toys, none of it seemed to quite fit with the picture of being a married woman... Amy and Bernadette seemed to think she should move in, move on, grow up, sensible and mindful with their talk of careers and savings plans, budgeting for home help and domestic responsibilities. Difficult to think of frivolous, fun things, confronted with those solid, sensible shoes, talk of skin conditions, bowel movements. They could talk together of work, grant committees and bureaucracy, stared with polite impatience when she ventured a mention of auditions or tv shows. So she would sink back into her chair and take another mouthful of wine, to numb the little voice that beat in time with her heart, dulldulldull...

Sheldon had managed three whole weeks in Texas before he'd come back, twitching and muttering about church bake sales and eschatology, both of which seemed to somehow involve his mother's new boyfriend. Since then, Amy had rarely let him out of her sight. Clung to his arm in a way that was more restraint than affection. She wouldn't let him go again. Eyed the ring on Penny's finger as if it were a personal reproach, and kept dropping heavy hints about the living arrangements.

The thing was... they could afford to live in 4B on Leonard's salary alone, but it wasn't big enough. 4A would work out so much better. But Sheldon was there first, and he had no reason to move. And then – he'd cracked, taken time out. (Escaped, said the little voice in Penny's head, the one she tried to drown out.) Penny had let him go - because what did Amy expect? That they would drag a grown man back into the car against his will? - and swallowed a burn of resentment, drowned the angry grief with a large glass of California red.

For three blissful weeks, Leonard had thought this was finally it. He had expanded over the apartment, gleeful at the freedom, already planning where the furniture would go – a proper dining table, just like she had always wanted, where they could have dinner parties with their friends, (couples with careers who would discuss grown-up adult things and laugh lightly at cool jokes over the appetisers,) Sheldon's room to be repurposed as a study-cum-guest room, for when his mother visited, (it would make a good nursery, until they moved into a house with a yard.) She wondered if it _was _quite by 'accident' that he'd knocked Sheldon's DNA helix over, and then shoved all the pieces away in the closet - "he can put it back together later" - as if it would be that easy to take the scattered parts and fit them just so again.

Until Sheldon came back, oblivious to hints and nuance, reproaches or resentment, and settled back into his room, an obstinate stone in the path to everyone, unyielding in his adherence to old routine, fervently, almost frantically anxious to pull his schedule around him like a comforting blanket. But Penny had recognised that hollow look, the trapped, shrieking thing behind his eyes. And then she had known – he had come back, not because he wanted to, but because he didn't have anywhere else to go.

Two weeks later, the first murder victim had been found.

Those detectives. Asking about Sheldon. She hoped he was okay. He was probably trying to tell them how to do their jobs, how Batman would have solved it by now. Her eye strayed to the bottle on the counter, and she pursed her lips. Better not have another, in case she had to go and haul his sorry ass out of the cells again. Though – perhaps he would call Amy, now. So she could have another glass. If she wanted to. Carry on sorting through the mess of her life, and throwing it away, piece by piece.

As if to mock her thoughts, there was a newscast on the muted tv. The faces on the screen... young, happy, laughing faces, caught forever in a moment. They had had their lives before them, hopes, dreams, plans for a future that would never happen now.

She felt a lifetime older, suddenly.

Marrying Leonard. Somehow, it wasn't quite the happy ending she'd envisaged for herself.

She was entering the dangerous age, now, getting too old for the fresh-faced starlet thing. Every year that passed, another crop of newcomers swept in, perky and glowing and not yet jaded. They all seemed to have better luck, to make better choices.

Increasingly it looked like her choices came down to - faking it in private for one guy, or taking the option of faking it on screen for strangers. Leonard was safe, she'd be secure...

(Sometimes, when he rolled over, seeking verbal assurance, needing confirmation to bolster his self-image, she could almost see the smug satisfaction oozing out of him, and she wanted to smother him with a pillow. Instead, she plastered on the pout, dropped her eyelids, hated herself.)

She'd failed at everything she'd ever tried, except keeping Leonard.

He was all she had. Him, and his little group of friends. Everyone else had dropped away, moved on.

Bernadette talked about not wanting children, but she was being ground down by family expectations. Soon, she'd make the complete transition into being a shrill clone of Howard's mother. Penny had visions of them in years to come, shrieking at each other from their own ends of the house, whilst Howard scurried between, worn down with placating them both. 'Uncle Raj', or maybe 'Uncle Stuart' at this rate, would probably be living over the garage and babysitting the kids.

Kids. Leonard wanted kids, somewhere down the line. He had an image in his head, an idealised family life that none of them had ever known, some Fifties throwback, a pastel suburbia. A couple of adorable apple-cheeked children playing with a puppy on the lawn, and his pretty blonde wife flitting between kitchen madonna - and bedroom whore. There was no place in that picture for the tall, strange friend. There never had been.

She could not picture Sheldon in the happy future that Amy was so desperately trying to craft for them, either. Amy, who had come out of nowhere, planted herself into the centre of things, and declared herself to be her 'bestie'. Declared her intention of turning Sheldon into a proper boyfriend. Penny had been trying to tell herself that it was a good thing, that no-one should be lonely, that everyone deserved to be loved. But. Sheldon was drinking now, and giving up on science, and acting more and more like a jerk. But without her, without his small group of friends, would he just get older and stranger, wear himself a groove into his life, and be nothing more than his routines?

But then – wasn't that her life?

Suddenly, she really wanted that drink.

They were both dreamers, but their lives had become a nightmare. Both of them stuck, dead end careers, dead end relationships, a tiny, stifling circle of friends who webbed them in, and no way out. Returning to their families wasn't an option, they couldn't go back, or on, had nowhere to be but by the side of those who professed to love them, who were taking all other choices away, blocking all other avenues.

It was just too much like hard work to face up to it. She was so tired, and it was too much of an effort to do anything to get out of the mess, not when she could dull everything so easily. Though – it seemed to take a bit more out of the bottle to get to 'fun, don't-care Penny' nowadays, and the buzz didn't last as long. That little niggling ache in her lower back that never seemed to go away.

Her hands were shaking. God, she needed that drink.

It was just this damned heat, was all. Setting them all on edge.

She loved Leonard. Amy loved Sheldon. They were all going to be happy. For ever and ever.

00000000000000

Landry stalked back into the office, and slumped so far down in his chair, he was practically sitting on his neck, swung his feet up onto the desk.

"Well, that was significantly horrible."

"Yeah?"

Landry sighed. He tried not to be prejudiced, but the woman had given him the creeps. It wasn't just her appearance, though the butt-ugly clothes didn't help, there was a stifling deadness to her, the monotone speech, the shark eyes.

"She spent all of the interview looking at me like I was a juicy steak, and treating me like I should be sat in the cage with her damn monkeys. If she treats Cooper like that, I'm definitely revising my opinion of his smarts downwards, for putting up with it." Lifted his shoulders. "I got one interesting thing out of it. They've been together for four years, but, uh, 'have not yet proceeded as far as coitus, despite her continual tender ministrations and gentle encouragement.' This has so far included outfits, plying him with alcohol and the use of spanking."

Turner choked on his coffee.

"You are shittin' me."

"Nope." Landry looked haunted. "She listed the outfits."

They both paused for a moment, then Turner shook his head.

"Okay. Either he won't - or he can't."

"Yeah, well," Landry twitched, "I don't blame him."

"She might be a perfectly nice woman, underneath..." He trailed off, hearing his own lack of conviction. Landry just clawed blindly for his own cup of coffee, took a gulp.

"Why in hell would anyone stay in that kind of set-up?"

It was rhetorical. They've seen it all in their time, the bruised denials, shifting eyes and defensive stances. Because there's always an excuse not to leave – maybe they're scared they won't find anything better, even if what they have is bad. Or they're forced to stay, because they can't afford to leave. Landry hated those, the thin, bruised women who stand between their kids and someone's fists, or worse, the ones that bleat that they still love him, through broken teeth and split lips.

Or sometimes, they are just lazy. Women who want security, and resignedly stake their bodies against it. It works, it's enough, so roll with it, dull the edges with drink or drugs or television or credit cards. That's the kind of situation that ends with a trip out to suburbia, and someone standing there dazed and claiming they never meant to. Plastic puppets, each in their own separate, desperate hell, and so far gone, they don't even know it.

People get scared to be alone, and they put up with all kinds of shit not to be.

Turner put his reading glasses on, daring Landry to make something of it, flipped through the forensics report.

"Like the others, no evidence of anything ritual at the scene, no assault, no sign they were disturbed in any way, just killed and left where they fell. Trace didn't find any human transfer on the vic, just carpet fibre and animal hair. Looks like someone dropped the loop over her head, and pulled, she clawed at it but dropped pretty fast. Ante-mortem bruising between the shoulders, maybe some kind of leverage, but it's a bit high to be a knee."

"Looks almost like fingers, but the spacing's weird..." Landry squinted at the photo, moving his own hand against the marks.

"Only her own skin under her nails, poor kid, and there were no marks on Cooper. Nothing on his clothes, either." Turner ran his eye down the page, stopped, and went back a few lines. "Well, damn."

Landry raised his head, looked where Turner pointed, made a face.

"...On his chair? Eurgh."

"Evidence of saliva on some of the desk stationery, too. Same female donor."

"And I say again, eurgh. I don't think a guy who insisted on babywipes after using a shared pen is gonna be happy with that." Thought for a moment. "Shit, if Cooper came in and found her licking his stapler, he might well have flipped out."

"It's not the vic."

"So some other woman has been coming in and - rubbing herself all over his stuff? That's just nasty."

"This whole damn case is nasty. Somebody decided to strangle three innocent young women and leave their bodies lying like trash."

"I think this last one was a mistake." Landry said, suddenly. "Or, no, she...wasn't in the right place."

"Go on."

"Decreasing radius. Just off the campus, just on the campus...by this pattern, the third victim should have been somewhere like the Beckman Lawn. Escalation to inside a building doesn't fit, too rapid."

"Right victim, wrong location?"

"But Cooper knew the cleaning staff were due, he was waiting for them." Tilted his head. "...Doesn't make sense."

"No." Turner frowned. "It doesn't. We're either dealing with someone very, very clever, or very, very dumb. And either way, very, very crazy."

00000000000000

Sheldon dithered in the corridor. His office was still closed, the ugly strident black and yellow of crime scene tape. But behind the door, everything had been touched, moved, violated. Covered in other people's fingerprints and germs. He couldn't work in there again, anyway. Not with that image before him. Sickened, he turned abruptly away, and nearly walked over a student. The girl looked up at him and gave a little shriek.

Sheldon yelped, too, found himself faced with half a dozen young faces. Not quite hostile, but wary.

The whispers ran before him in the hallways, sideways looks and a visible drawing away.

Like when everyone knew that 'Smelly Pooper' had incurred the wrath of Elliot Jankowicz and his gang, and nobody was going to walk near him for fear they'd get beaten up and dropped in a dumpster, too. The skinny, strange kid, walking fast with his head down, clutching his books, always alone, always an obvious target.

He always told the truth because Jesus didn't like a liar. Well, Jesus might not like a liar, but Jesus wasn't there when retribution came. Nothing but hard, unfriendly faces, pushes and fists and jeering laughter.

(Sent off to college early, because he would never have survived High School.)

He had to go home. Had to get away. Perhaps he could call Penny to collect him. Penny would come. But.

He didn't like Penny's new car. It smelled wrong. The seats weren't comfortable. Everything was different. Change was never good.

There were no safe havens left. His office defiled, the comic store gone in flames, the apartment continually overrun, Penny and Leonard, Howard and Bernadette, Raj, Stuart, and Amy. Even his room was no longer sacrosanct. Geology had happened within the walls.

Everything kept changing. Everyone kept pushing him to change. Amy kept pushing him to kiss her, to touch her, to say and do things that were alien and confusing. He wanted safety and comfort, security. Not the clinging and simpering and pawing that so bewildered him, and which he found himself unable to avoid. This was what it was to be an adult, apparently. They all had to grow up.

He didn't want to. Nothing smelled right, nothing tasted right, things were moved, displaced. It was the kind of chaotic disorder that Penny lived in, but that he could not endure.

He was being altered, trammelled, finding himself enmeshed and bending to the will of others. It was not to be borne.

He had to get out. Now.

Pushing his way past, head down, uncaring of who he knocked into, pushed aside, just an animal instinct.

Three girls were dead. Three lives snuffed out, because they had touched his. Their existence considered less important.

He clutched the worn-out mantra to him like a talisman.

"I'm not crazy. My mother had me tested." But it was a broken whisper, and held no comfort.

00000000000000

He should have waited until she was clear of the buildings. Like the other ones. It was too obvious, but she had been fussing with the papers, touching things, he'd grown impatient, irritated, she wasn't going to leave, and the noise, the noise in his head...

They were allowed so far, to minister to Him, but no further. Blonde hair in the sunlight, and the light laughter, and all that creamy flesh on display... Strumpets, parading around the campus in their shorts and crop tops, pretty feet in sandals, tempting Him. But they were not for Him, they were not who He was meant to desire. They were not allowed to touch, to fondle, to look up at Him with large eyes and long eyelashes and luscious pouting lips. Lifting that blonde hair up off their long pale necks, that sideways look, 'my, isn't it hot, Dr Cooper?', heaving bosoms in tight t-shirts. Harlots.

He was still pure, they had not managed to make Him stray. He was bound by habit and self-imposed rules. The contract was still enforced. But they kept coming. A stream of blonde temptresses, one succeeding another. When one fell, there was always another to take her place.

He knew his mind had been...tampered with. Was no longer his alone to command. He had no choice but to obey. Some habits were too inbuilt into his very being, now. Soon, he would be compelled... It would begin again, that intolerable din in his head, a pressure that would only be released by compliance.


	4. Chapter 4

Amy was in a mood by the time she reached Leonard's office. She had been subjected to impertinent questions, when what she had really needed to do was to collect Sheldon, before he was released. The detective hadn't seemed to realise that it was imperative that she take charge of him. He had wandered out of her purview once before, and she wouldn't let that happen again. She had invested too much time and effort to be thwarted in her plans. She _deserved_ the love of Sheldon Cooper, and she was going to have it. But he had slipped from her grasp once more, loose in the world without her. Anything could happen to him, traffic accidents, importunate grad students... The best case scenario was that his confusion and isolation would have led him to take refuge with Leonard. The upside of his anxiety-fuelled pseudo-mysophobia was that he wouldn't take a bus. The worst case scenario, well... Amy was still annoyed with her bestie, for allowing Sheldon to roam free, though one couldn't stay angry with that delectable goddess for long. After all, whilst she was a vision of golden loveliness, she was not on an intellectual footing with the rest of their group. Far better that she simply looked pretty and listened to the wisdom of others.

Shaking from her head the vision of pouting moist cherry-red lips, she pushed open the door.

"Leonard, where is Sheldon?"

He jumped, faced her with that irritating cringe of his.

"I haven't seen him since lunch-time. I had to give up half my break to fetch him clean pants."

"They released him without informing me. I assumed he would turn to you for a lift home."

"I'm surprised you haven't chipped him." Leonard said, snidely.

"It would require an anaesthetic, and applying such a thing proved difficult. Unfortunately, his cellphone and laptop are still within your apartment. I don't understand what he was doing out on his own, anyway."

Leonard took that as an accusation.

"It isn't my job to watch him. He's _your_ boyfriend."

"I am aware of that." She ungritted her teeth. "I left him sleeping after he refused my offer to stay and stroke his brow."

"Yeah, well, sometime he gets out and wanders into traffic. Look, I don't have time to cater to him any more."

"Of course not. Your focus must be on Penny and her role in your life."

"Yeah." He almost glistened with satisfaction. Amy bit down on her frustration and resentment.

"An ideal solution would be for you to move in to Penny's apartment, of course."

"I don't see why I should be the one to move out." His lower lip jutted, obstinate. "All the decent furniture is mine, and it won't fit in the smaller place."

"I suppose space won't be such an issue when his childish toys and comics were gone." Amy mused. "And it would do away with his silly nonsense about separate rooms. Very well, we shall just keep applying gentle, reasoning pressure to bring him around to our way of thinking." Glared at him. "If you had not let him run away, the task would be much easier."

"What was I supposed to do, drag him back into the car?"

"Yes. He doesn't know what is good for him, he needs my love and guidance." Amy snapped. "It will take weeks of training to re-establish the bonds of affection. You shouldn't have been so precipitous. I fully understand your desire to create a nuptial love-nest wherein you can explore the heights of lustful passion with my bestie's deliciously perfect body, but you should have considered my needs."

"I thought he'd see the sense in moving out. Anyway, you're the one who pushed too fast. Isn't the phrase 'softly, softly, catchee monkey'?"

Amy looked blankly at him.

"A tranquilliser gun and a heavy net usually suffice."

Leonard shivered. She really did remind him of his mother sometimes.

"We know she clings to the familiar, as does he. We simply need to divert that urge, focus the attention to where it should be, on us. Perhaps you should consider taking Penny away for a while, somewhere where she can concentrate on you."

"Well..." Leonard's eyes skidded about, "I can't move out, if they arrest...the apartment..." Then, with conscious virtue. "I mean, I have to be there. For Sheldon. In case."

"They will not lock Sheldon up. I won't allow them to take him away from me." She fixed him with a beady glare that froze him in his seat. "It was very unwise to repeat unfounded rumours about his involvement, Leonard. It may mean the police take a closer look at you, as his best friend."

"Me? But I haven't done anything. I'm innocent. I'm..." Leonard paled, as thoughts flitted through his head, of rocket fuel and can-openers.

"I would suggest that you go home, enjoy a glass of wine together and let Penny soothe away your tension with her sensuous administrations." Her mouth tightened. "I shall find Sheldon, and take care of him. I sincerely hope he will not try and run away again. He must be brought to understand that his life and future lie with me now."

Leonard didn't watch her leave, already fumbling in his desk drawer for his inhaler. He was going home, and he was taking Penny away for a bit. Yes. It would do them both good to have a little vacation. Maybe go back to that little guest house again. This whole situation was horribly stressful, it was bringing on his rash again. Damn Sheldon for getting them mixed up in this business, anyway, this was all his fault, just like it usually was.

00000000000000

Sometimes, he dreams of freedom. To make choices of his own, on a whim. To be unleashed from these shackles.

He didn't want to kill, but another purpose took over, moved him. He knew the signs, now. Soon, it would be time.

There would be a face. Never quite the same, but somehow, alike. And then, there would be the urge, the rising rage that drove him onward to perform such acts.

It was not his fault. He was made to do it. Honeyed words with acid beneath, twisting him, remaking him.

He was the pawn of others, a player in some sick drama. She would want all his attention again, as She told him her plans for Him, those damnable hands that petted and pawed and made him feel unclean to the depths of his being.

He dreams of freedom. But he lives in hell.


End file.
